Defiant

9 years ago

Iran Won’t Work With Nuke Inspectors

What are they trying to hide? Iran is still refusing to comply with the demands of global nuclear inspectors seeking to determine whether Tehran’s uranium facilities are producing weapons, according to a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency. Just three months ago, the U.N. Security Council levied its toughest sanctions against Iran for its noncompliance, cutting off their access to foreign capital and blocking their ships from certain foreign ports. But still, the report protests, Iran has banned two of the agency’s most experienced inspectors and refused to answer questions about “activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” Iran has argued that the agency, a unit of the U.N., had “no legal basis” to make its requests. Inspectors found 6,108 pounds of low-enriched uranium at Tehran’s main facility at Natanz, which they were granted access to—enough to produce about two nuclear weapons. The report concluded that Tehran “has not provided the necessary cooperation to permit the agency to confirm that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.”